Liberal Arts Services

Spring 2008

ANT 310L • Anthropology of Latin America

Unique

Days

Time

Location

Instructor

30240 to 30255

Multiple Sections

MEZ BO.306

HALE

Course Description

Upon receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the great Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez thanked the committee, and went on to bemoan the "solitude" of Latin America in relation to the powerful North.
The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, he proclaimed, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary. From this course students will acquire a overview of Latin America through an anthropological lens: the great indigenous civilizations, through colonialism and dependent development, to the poverty of progress as the 21st century begins. With special attention to classic anthropological themes of race, gender and cultural difference, power and inequality, utopian visions that emerge from the society's margins we will explore anthropology's response to Garcia Marquez's challenge.

Grading Policy

In-class test (geography and short-answer): 10%
Auto-ethnography (3 pp. max): 10%
Take home test: 15%
Conversation with Latin American-born immigrant (5 pp.): 15%
Final Exam: 30%
Section attendance and participation: 20%
Handouts with detailed explanations of the two writing assignments will be distributed three weeks before the due date.

Texts

The following required texts will be available at the Coop:
Arguedas, José Maria Deep Rivers (Waveland)
Sanford, Victoria Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (Palgrave)
Martínez, Rubén: Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail (Picador)
A reader will be available for purchase at Abel's Copy (715D W. 23rd Street, 472-5353)